Wow, it has been ages. I have tons to write about, which is why I haven't been writing. So much has been happening and I haven't had time to write any of it down and now I seriously don't even know where to begin. I think I'll just have to post one of those annoyingly long lists of things that have happened in the past two weeks. I have work life news, social life news, love life news (yes, really!), travel stories, and the usual sort of observations that are really only entertaining to me.
But tonight I actually have to do some reading and research since I have spent the whole weekend conveniently ignoring the fact that I'm a graduate student who has papers due next week.
Consider this a promise of more actual news to come eventually. No promises as to when "eventually" may be, but if I don't have time to sit down and hammer out a freakin' blog entry sometime before the end of next week, then things are just really out of hand over here.
At least now you know I'm still alive though, right?
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
A Cautionary Tale
Yesterday, my whole family left the town where we had been attending (or, in my case, participating in) a wedding all weekend. We drove an hour and a half back to the city where I used to live last year while I was working on my MA and where my brother and sister live currently (technically, I lived and went to school about half an hour away from said city, but you know what I mean, it's all one big urban/suburban region). My parents still had a few hours to kill before they had to go to the airport, so we went to a Mexican food restaurant and met my aunt and uncle there. Maddi also drove into town to meet us for lunch.
Two hours and several strawberry margaritas later, my brother suggested that we go back to his apartment to play Rock Band. Maddi and I had been planning to go to the mall to buy sunglasses for Las Vegas (two days 'til Vegas!) but I was like, "Oooooh, Rock Band!" and Maddi said, "What is Rock Band?" and I said, "I've been wanting to play Rock Band for months!" Which is why I ended up at my brother's apartment with him, Maddi, my brother's roommate, another one of his good friends, and my sister (who, incidentally, had begun the afternoon by saying "I'm just going to have one margarita because I have to go home and study this afternoon." HA.)
Here comes the cautionary part: DO NOT start playing Rock Band if you ever want to do anything else again in your life. Definitely, definitely do not buy it. Because we started playing Rock Band at about 4:00, and six hours and four or five beers later I couldn't even talk any more because I'd been singing so much and laughing so hard and yet I was still perched on the end of the couch hoarsely yelping, "Do 'Don't Fear the Reaper' again! Again! I want to be the cowbell!"
It was so much fun. I know I'm probably the last one onto this bandwagon (as I usually am with anything that's remotely popular), but if you haven't played it yet, your mission for the week should be to befriend someone that has it. But don't say I didn't warn you about its immense time-sucking qualities.
I'll post more later this week about Roomie's wedding. I'd do it right now but my laptop is about to run out of power and I don't feel like digging through my suitcase to find my charger. Plus I might want to include some pictures. All I will say right now is that the wedding was ultimately beautiful and so much fun, and if there were such a thing as a Bridesmaid of the Year award, I think I should be a nominee. I was trouble shooting all night in heels and a form-fitting floor-length satin dress. Surely that's something that could go in the "Special Skills" section of my resume.
Oh, and Happy St. Patrick's Day, by the way! I'm hanging out in MA town tonight with Maddi and some of my grad school friends and Maddi's boyfriend and some of his friends. It should be a good time. Then tomorrow evening I'm flying out to hometown for a couple of nights. So if you don't hear from me for a while it's because I'm once again trying to figure out how many time zones a person can visit in a ten day period without going nuts.
Two hours and several strawberry margaritas later, my brother suggested that we go back to his apartment to play Rock Band. Maddi and I had been planning to go to the mall to buy sunglasses for Las Vegas (two days 'til Vegas!) but I was like, "Oooooh, Rock Band!" and Maddi said, "What is Rock Band?" and I said, "I've been wanting to play Rock Band for months!" Which is why I ended up at my brother's apartment with him, Maddi, my brother's roommate, another one of his good friends, and my sister (who, incidentally, had begun the afternoon by saying "I'm just going to have one margarita because I have to go home and study this afternoon." HA.)
Here comes the cautionary part: DO NOT start playing Rock Band if you ever want to do anything else again in your life. Definitely, definitely do not buy it. Because we started playing Rock Band at about 4:00, and six hours and four or five beers later I couldn't even talk any more because I'd been singing so much and laughing so hard and yet I was still perched on the end of the couch hoarsely yelping, "Do 'Don't Fear the Reaper' again! Again! I want to be the cowbell!"
It was so much fun. I know I'm probably the last one onto this bandwagon (as I usually am with anything that's remotely popular), but if you haven't played it yet, your mission for the week should be to befriend someone that has it. But don't say I didn't warn you about its immense time-sucking qualities.
I'll post more later this week about Roomie's wedding. I'd do it right now but my laptop is about to run out of power and I don't feel like digging through my suitcase to find my charger. Plus I might want to include some pictures. All I will say right now is that the wedding was ultimately beautiful and so much fun, and if there were such a thing as a Bridesmaid of the Year award, I think I should be a nominee. I was trouble shooting all night in heels and a form-fitting floor-length satin dress. Surely that's something that could go in the "Special Skills" section of my resume.
Oh, and Happy St. Patrick's Day, by the way! I'm hanging out in MA town tonight with Maddi and some of my grad school friends and Maddi's boyfriend and some of his friends. It should be a good time. Then tomorrow evening I'm flying out to hometown for a couple of nights. So if you don't hear from me for a while it's because I'm once again trying to figure out how many time zones a person can visit in a ten day period without going nuts.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Snuffles
I made it through the first half of the semester! My spring break officially begins in six hours. I just have to get through one more seminar tonight and then it's vacation time.
Unfortunately, I think I'm getting sick. Or rather, I hope I'm already as sick as I'm going to get and that it's not going to get worse. On Tuesday one of my profs mentioned in class that she thought she was coming down with a cold, and Nicole said, "Well, colds aren't contagious, are they?" and I said, "Yeah they are," and I guess I had to go and prove myself right because not 24 hours later I was walking across campus thinking about how my throat was feeling a little off. And now I'm all sneezy. Fortunately, the only symptoms so far seem to be this incessant sneezing and slight fatigue (which may actually be caused by the fact that I haven't gotten more than five or six hours of sleep per night since Saturday so I can't entirely blame that on the cold). Tomorrow I get to spread my germs to an entire plane full of people! And between now and next Monday I'll be traveling through/hanging out in seven different cities or towns in three different states (not counting the suburban town where I am currently sniffling away on my couch). Hello everyone! Enjoy your virus! I brought it all the way from the east coast just for you!
Oh well. I just can't wait to get onto my plane tomorrow morning. 3 and a half hours of reading trashy magazines and dozing sounds pretty amazing right now. Between now and then I still have to do a bunch of stuff. Take my dog to get his nails trimmed, drop my dog off with the friend in City A who has oh-so-kindly agreed to dogsit for me, buy a few things at the drug store, pack.
Actually, I can't wait to pack. It's supposed to be 90 degrees in the city I'm flying to tomorrow. 90 degrees! I will have you know that at this exact moment it is 47 degrees where I am, and I woke up this morning happy that the highs are going to be in the 50s so I can take the dog for a long walk in the "warm" weather. But now I get to pack a bathing suit and actually wear it! And between the wedding (which involves a rehearsal dinner and a bridesmaid's luncheon) and St. Patrick's Day bar hopping with my grad school friends and then several nights in Las Vegas, do you have any idea how many opportunities that is to create cute outfits? Cute outfits that don't involve sleeves or thick tights?! I have a closet full of sparkly, shiny, skimpy, maybe even sexy tanks and halters and dresses, many of which have not had the occasion to be brought out of the closet since I moved to University Land. I'm telling you right now that I am waaaaaaay over packing. And that one entire suitcase is going to be nothing but my cosmetic bag and shoes (and school books, but who wants to think about that?).
P.S.-I still haven't heard from the job I applied for-or rather, I got an e-mail saying that they would be calling me next week but then I never got a phone call, so I don't know what that means-but yesterday I got a job offer from a company that wants me to do some work for them this spring and early summer. I didn't apply for this job. One of my professors recommended me to them, which makes me really happy. It means s/he obviously has some faith in my work. Anyway, this isn't a paying job, but it would be good professional experience of the sort that I really need to fill out my resume. And even though it's not a paying job, it doesn't matter because my goal is just to add a job in my field to my resume this summer, and if I do this job in the spring/early summer I could spend the rest of the summer doing a bartending or waitressing job and making good money without having to feel like I wasted the whole summer doing something that I can't even put on my resume. It would be the best of both worlds, I think. Here's hoping this works out! The job is mine if I want it, but it all depends on scheduling, so keep your fingers crossed.
Unfortunately, I think I'm getting sick. Or rather, I hope I'm already as sick as I'm going to get and that it's not going to get worse. On Tuesday one of my profs mentioned in class that she thought she was coming down with a cold, and Nicole said, "Well, colds aren't contagious, are they?" and I said, "Yeah they are," and I guess I had to go and prove myself right because not 24 hours later I was walking across campus thinking about how my throat was feeling a little off. And now I'm all sneezy. Fortunately, the only symptoms so far seem to be this incessant sneezing and slight fatigue (which may actually be caused by the fact that I haven't gotten more than five or six hours of sleep per night since Saturday so I can't entirely blame that on the cold). Tomorrow I get to spread my germs to an entire plane full of people! And between now and next Monday I'll be traveling through/hanging out in seven different cities or towns in three different states (not counting the suburban town where I am currently sniffling away on my couch). Hello everyone! Enjoy your virus! I brought it all the way from the east coast just for you!
Oh well. I just can't wait to get onto my plane tomorrow morning. 3 and a half hours of reading trashy magazines and dozing sounds pretty amazing right now. Between now and then I still have to do a bunch of stuff. Take my dog to get his nails trimmed, drop my dog off with the friend in City A who has oh-so-kindly agreed to dogsit for me, buy a few things at the drug store, pack.
Actually, I can't wait to pack. It's supposed to be 90 degrees in the city I'm flying to tomorrow. 90 degrees! I will have you know that at this exact moment it is 47 degrees where I am, and I woke up this morning happy that the highs are going to be in the 50s so I can take the dog for a long walk in the "warm" weather. But now I get to pack a bathing suit and actually wear it! And between the wedding (which involves a rehearsal dinner and a bridesmaid's luncheon) and St. Patrick's Day bar hopping with my grad school friends and then several nights in Las Vegas, do you have any idea how many opportunities that is to create cute outfits? Cute outfits that don't involve sleeves or thick tights?! I have a closet full of sparkly, shiny, skimpy, maybe even sexy tanks and halters and dresses, many of which have not had the occasion to be brought out of the closet since I moved to University Land. I'm telling you right now that I am waaaaaaay over packing. And that one entire suitcase is going to be nothing but my cosmetic bag and shoes (and school books, but who wants to think about that?).
P.S.-I still haven't heard from the job I applied for-or rather, I got an e-mail saying that they would be calling me next week but then I never got a phone call, so I don't know what that means-but yesterday I got a job offer from a company that wants me to do some work for them this spring and early summer. I didn't apply for this job. One of my professors recommended me to them, which makes me really happy. It means s/he obviously has some faith in my work. Anyway, this isn't a paying job, but it would be good professional experience of the sort that I really need to fill out my resume. And even though it's not a paying job, it doesn't matter because my goal is just to add a job in my field to my resume this summer, and if I do this job in the spring/early summer I could spend the rest of the summer doing a bartending or waitressing job and making good money without having to feel like I wasted the whole summer doing something that I can't even put on my resume. It would be the best of both worlds, I think. Here's hoping this works out! The job is mine if I want it, but it all depends on scheduling, so keep your fingers crossed.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Give Me A Break
I'm so ready for spring break. I'm ready to dance at Roomie's wedding. I'm ready to get some good food in my hometown. I'm ready to lie by the pool in Vegas with a pina colada in hand. I'm ready for a night of parying at the Playboy Club at The Palms, complete with bottle service (which, incidentally, was my father's idea, and when he called me to say, "Would that be okay with you if we went there on Friday night? And would you ask everyone else if they want to go [everyone meaning Maddi, my sister, my brother and his friend, my cousin, and her husband]?" I was like, "Are you crazy? Who is going to say no to that?" As predicted, nobody said no.)
This next week is going to be rough. I have a big paper due in my class on Wednesday and a big presentation due in my class on Tuesday. This means I have a ton of research and reading and writing to do this weekend and next week, and yet I can't seem to stop accepting invitations or offering my help to people. Last night I attended an obligatory social event (I'm not being facetious, I really did have to go for the class I teach) and then I ended up at the bar afterwards, and one drink turned into 3 drinks and sitting at the bar until 1 a.m., which is what always happens. Today I have to go to a class that got rescheduled after it got canceled last week. Then I still have to do all my usual Friday stuff (cleaning the apartment since I didn't get to clean last week since I was out of town, grocery shopping for some staples because I'm out of everything but am still in town for another week, working out). So I doubt I'll get started on any homework until 8 or 9 tonight. Tomorrow I volunteered to help a friend and her husband move into their new apartment. I'm only going for a few hours, and it should be kind of fun since so many of us are helping out. Plus who couldn't use the good karma from helping a friend move? I'll need someone to help me move some day I'm sure. But still, that's a few hours out of my day on Saturday. Sunday a friend invited me to her movie discussion club since her husband can't go, which I'm not going to turn down because it's a chance to see a pre-release movie for free and I never get to go to movies lately and I miss them. I also have a dog play date planned for Sunday afternoon which I'm not going to cancel at this point because we've been trying to get everyone together for literally months now. On Monday I agreed to go out with some friends of my mom's. They're this really sweet older couple. My mom used to babysit their kids years ago when they were all living on the same military base in Germany, and coincidentally I have ended up in the same town that they have been living in for years. I met them when my mom was in town last September, and now they periodically take me out to lunch. I'm not sure why, actually, I guess just to make sure I'm doing okay. Like I said, it's very sweet and I get a free restaurant lunch out of the deal which, admittedly, is an incentive. So yeah, Monday is not an ideal day for a two hour lunch, but it's another one of those situations where we've been trying to find a time to get together for six weeks or so now and I don't want to cancel on them now that we've finally coordinated something. Tuesday night I may have to babysit for a friend so she can go to marriage counseling (this marriage warrants a post in and of itself; I'm amazed that men like her husband still exist in the twenty-first century). Wednesday night I'm supposed to go to dinner with my cousin and my aunt and uncle who are in town visiting her. And I applied for a summer job last week and they told me they'd be calling me this upcoming week, which hopefully means I'll have an interview I'll have to squeeze in there somewhere.
And then Friday morning I have to take the first of four plane flights I'll be making in ten days.
Ah, my life. It doesn't feel fair to complain, though. And to be honest, I don't even think I want to. How can I complain about having too many invitations, too many people I enjoy spending time with, and a career that keeps me too busy? I'm really, really lucky that my "problems" and my "stress" aren't really either one of those things at all.
This next week is going to be rough. I have a big paper due in my class on Wednesday and a big presentation due in my class on Tuesday. This means I have a ton of research and reading and writing to do this weekend and next week, and yet I can't seem to stop accepting invitations or offering my help to people. Last night I attended an obligatory social event (I'm not being facetious, I really did have to go for the class I teach) and then I ended up at the bar afterwards, and one drink turned into 3 drinks and sitting at the bar until 1 a.m., which is what always happens. Today I have to go to a class that got rescheduled after it got canceled last week. Then I still have to do all my usual Friday stuff (cleaning the apartment since I didn't get to clean last week since I was out of town, grocery shopping for some staples because I'm out of everything but am still in town for another week, working out). So I doubt I'll get started on any homework until 8 or 9 tonight. Tomorrow I volunteered to help a friend and her husband move into their new apartment. I'm only going for a few hours, and it should be kind of fun since so many of us are helping out. Plus who couldn't use the good karma from helping a friend move? I'll need someone to help me move some day I'm sure. But still, that's a few hours out of my day on Saturday. Sunday a friend invited me to her movie discussion club since her husband can't go, which I'm not going to turn down because it's a chance to see a pre-release movie for free and I never get to go to movies lately and I miss them. I also have a dog play date planned for Sunday afternoon which I'm not going to cancel at this point because we've been trying to get everyone together for literally months now. On Monday I agreed to go out with some friends of my mom's. They're this really sweet older couple. My mom used to babysit their kids years ago when they were all living on the same military base in Germany, and coincidentally I have ended up in the same town that they have been living in for years. I met them when my mom was in town last September, and now they periodically take me out to lunch. I'm not sure why, actually, I guess just to make sure I'm doing okay. Like I said, it's very sweet and I get a free restaurant lunch out of the deal which, admittedly, is an incentive. So yeah, Monday is not an ideal day for a two hour lunch, but it's another one of those situations where we've been trying to find a time to get together for six weeks or so now and I don't want to cancel on them now that we've finally coordinated something. Tuesday night I may have to babysit for a friend so she can go to marriage counseling (this marriage warrants a post in and of itself; I'm amazed that men like her husband still exist in the twenty-first century). Wednesday night I'm supposed to go to dinner with my cousin and my aunt and uncle who are in town visiting her. And I applied for a summer job last week and they told me they'd be calling me this upcoming week, which hopefully means I'll have an interview I'll have to squeeze in there somewhere.
And then Friday morning I have to take the first of four plane flights I'll be making in ten days.
Ah, my life. It doesn't feel fair to complain, though. And to be honest, I don't even think I want to. How can I complain about having too many invitations, too many people I enjoy spending time with, and a career that keeps me too busy? I'm really, really lucky that my "problems" and my "stress" aren't really either one of those things at all.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Still Alive
Wow, I didn't realize it had been so long since I last posted. I knew it had been a while, but I didn't realize it had been ten days. Sorry about that.
Of course, the frustrating thing about keeping a blog/journal is that when there are a lot of things to talk about, there is no time to write about any of it. So I'm writing right now only to say hi. I'm still alive.
I had a busy week of classes last week and then I was at a conference in KC, MO all weekend and I'll really have to tell you more about that because it was good times, but the bullet pointed summary is as follows (Because, let's be honest, will I actually ever get around to telling you the whole story? Probably not):
-This was my first time doing some sort of committee/collaborative work at a conference as opposed to presenting a paper, and it ended up being a great choice. I got to know a lot of people very quickly, and it's much easier to meet people through working than it is to have to awkwardly stare at people's chests deciphering name badges at cocktail meet-and-greets.
-Besides getting to hang out with the University Land contingent, I also got to see two of my good friends and two of my profs from my masters program. We got to spend a ton of time together over the weekend, and it was so much fun catching up.
-The barbecue IS good there.
-Dozens of buildings surrounding the hotel were linked by these gerbil-tunnely things suspended over the streets, making it absolutely unnecessary to venture outside at all the entire weekend. I was there for three and a half days and probably spent a grand total of twenty minutes outside.
-There was a ton of shop talk, and the gossip level this weekend exponentially increased from the norm (which is already pretty damn high). I don't know if it was because we spent a substantial amount of time drinking (not drunk, but just drinking together makes people want to tell good stories), or because the possibilities for gossip were greater because we could now not only gossip about University Land but about all the other people at the conference. Frankly, it kind of stressed me out, because I realize that if I gab about other people, they're definitely talking about me as well. But there's also nothing I can do about it, that's just the nature of the beast. All I can do is try not to give everyone TOO much to talk about.
-One of the most amusing revelations of the weekend? I was talking with some of my friends and my boss (a fellow grad student who is ABD and lectures the class I TA) and we were talking about the relative hotness of academics (you know, how there's "hot" and then "hot for a professor" and how those are generally two different things). So I said, "Yeah, I'll look around a room and be happy that I'm the hottest one there. And then I'll realize that it's only because the room is full of old bearded guys. Woohoo, I'm the hottest person in this room full of academics! What an accomplishment!" And my boss said, "Shut up, you usually ARE the hottest one in the room even when it's not old guys." I laughed and said, "That's definitely not true." And then she said, "Okay, full confession. Don't get mad at me...but when we first started classes last semester, my husband was asking about all the other TAs and I was listing you all and I said, 'There's Nicole and Anna and, damn it, what's her name? Pretty Pretty." And she said "Pretty Pretty" in a sort of voice that brought to mind Barbie dolls and cheerleaders. I was like, "Oh, ouch!" and she explained that she figured out quickly that I had a brain, too, but she said that to this day her husband will still say to her, "How's Pretty Pretty?" The whole thing makes me laugh, and I suppose in a way it's flattering. Better than being Ugly Bitch, for instance. But I'm not sure that "pretty" is the first impression I want to make, although I know that my boss is utterly right about me, because I don't think "smart" or "confident" are the first impression I make. Although I like to think I'm those things as well. I don't know how to change that, though, or if I really need to be concerned about it. I need to think more about it because there are bigger issues at stake here. However, like I said, it could be worse.
-I spent almost as much time sneaking away to the gym or happy hour as I spent attending sessions or panels. I don't feel at all guilty about this. And the panels I did go to were (mostly) worthwhile.
-When you're slightly drunk and with six other people that are also slightly drunk, nothing-and I mean nothing-will be more amusing than a revolving restaurant.
Anyway, I don't promise that posting will get any better this month. It's a really hectic time of year: mid-semester grading, lots of class projects, trying to apply for jobs and get my act together for the summer, working on a submission for another conference and the paper I have to present at one next month, and then spring break, of course.
So yeah. I'll do my best.
Of course, the frustrating thing about keeping a blog/journal is that when there are a lot of things to talk about, there is no time to write about any of it. So I'm writing right now only to say hi. I'm still alive.
I had a busy week of classes last week and then I was at a conference in KC, MO all weekend and I'll really have to tell you more about that because it was good times, but the bullet pointed summary is as follows (Because, let's be honest, will I actually ever get around to telling you the whole story? Probably not):
-This was my first time doing some sort of committee/collaborative work at a conference as opposed to presenting a paper, and it ended up being a great choice. I got to know a lot of people very quickly, and it's much easier to meet people through working than it is to have to awkwardly stare at people's chests deciphering name badges at cocktail meet-and-greets.
-Besides getting to hang out with the University Land contingent, I also got to see two of my good friends and two of my profs from my masters program. We got to spend a ton of time together over the weekend, and it was so much fun catching up.
-The barbecue IS good there.
-Dozens of buildings surrounding the hotel were linked by these gerbil-tunnely things suspended over the streets, making it absolutely unnecessary to venture outside at all the entire weekend. I was there for three and a half days and probably spent a grand total of twenty minutes outside.
-There was a ton of shop talk, and the gossip level this weekend exponentially increased from the norm (which is already pretty damn high). I don't know if it was because we spent a substantial amount of time drinking (not drunk, but just drinking together makes people want to tell good stories), or because the possibilities for gossip were greater because we could now not only gossip about University Land but about all the other people at the conference. Frankly, it kind of stressed me out, because I realize that if I gab about other people, they're definitely talking about me as well. But there's also nothing I can do about it, that's just the nature of the beast. All I can do is try not to give everyone TOO much to talk about.
-One of the most amusing revelations of the weekend? I was talking with some of my friends and my boss (a fellow grad student who is ABD and lectures the class I TA) and we were talking about the relative hotness of academics (you know, how there's "hot" and then "hot for a professor" and how those are generally two different things). So I said, "Yeah, I'll look around a room and be happy that I'm the hottest one there. And then I'll realize that it's only because the room is full of old bearded guys. Woohoo, I'm the hottest person in this room full of academics! What an accomplishment!" And my boss said, "Shut up, you usually ARE the hottest one in the room even when it's not old guys." I laughed and said, "That's definitely not true." And then she said, "Okay, full confession. Don't get mad at me...but when we first started classes last semester, my husband was asking about all the other TAs and I was listing you all and I said, 'There's Nicole and Anna and, damn it, what's her name? Pretty Pretty." And she said "Pretty Pretty" in a sort of voice that brought to mind Barbie dolls and cheerleaders. I was like, "Oh, ouch!" and she explained that she figured out quickly that I had a brain, too, but she said that to this day her husband will still say to her, "How's Pretty Pretty?" The whole thing makes me laugh, and I suppose in a way it's flattering. Better than being Ugly Bitch, for instance. But I'm not sure that "pretty" is the first impression I want to make, although I know that my boss is utterly right about me, because I don't think "smart" or "confident" are the first impression I make. Although I like to think I'm those things as well. I don't know how to change that, though, or if I really need to be concerned about it. I need to think more about it because there are bigger issues at stake here. However, like I said, it could be worse.
-I spent almost as much time sneaking away to the gym or happy hour as I spent attending sessions or panels. I don't feel at all guilty about this. And the panels I did go to were (mostly) worthwhile.
-When you're slightly drunk and with six other people that are also slightly drunk, nothing-and I mean nothing-will be more amusing than a revolving restaurant.
Anyway, I don't promise that posting will get any better this month. It's a really hectic time of year: mid-semester grading, lots of class projects, trying to apply for jobs and get my act together for the summer, working on a submission for another conference and the paper I have to present at one next month, and then spring break, of course.
So yeah. I'll do my best.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Disturbing Things I Have Learned in the Past 24 Hours:
1. Did you know that the only real difference between Jello and glue is that Jello has some sugar and flavoring? Otherwise, there's pretty much no difference at all. Jello is made up of the same animal by-products and skins that make up glue. Or so I heard on the radio today, anyway. I came into the program a few seconds into it, so it's possible that they may have been talking about Jello past and not Jello present, but I'm pretty sure that they're talking about modern Jello. And while I sort of knew this already, I never really thought about it before until today. I'm just grateful that I was never a big fan of Jello in the first place. With that said, I'm sure Jello isn't any more disgusting than half of what I eat on a daily basis. The difference is that normally I just don't think much about what I'm eating, but now I can't stop thinking, "Jello! Cow hooves! Skin!" And now you can enjoy that appetizing thought as well. You're welcome.
2. I talked to Roomie for a couple of hours last night. I'd called her to ask her a question about shoes for the wedding and the next thing I know two hours had gone by. That's how it is with us. At one point I asked her whether or not she is going to wear a veil and she said she is and then she said, "Do you know why brides wear veils?" and I said, "No, I never thought about it before," and she told me that someone told her that back in the medieval days (I don't know what country's medieval days we were talking about) the bride and her bridesmaids all wore matching dresses, and the only thing that distinguished the bride was her veil. She wore the veil to cover her face so that demons couldn't give her the evil eye and curse her on her wedding day, and the bridesmaids wore matching dresses so that the demons would get confused and give the evil eye to the bridesmaids instead. I was like, "Wait, so I get to absorb all the ojo* on your wedding day?" and she said, "Yes!" and I said, "Awesome!" Glad to know that I'll be soaking up the evil spirits. Anything for my Roomie!
3. My dog is capable of eating an entire McDonald's hamburger in less than ten seconds. It's his third birthday today so we took a Car Ride! to McDonald's to get him a hamburger. He ate the meat first, then the bun, and he managed to eat the entire thing in the time I was opening a ketchup packet. I love my dog.
*Maddi and I love joking about giving people the ojo. Her mom is one of those cute old Mexican women who goes around touching babies because she's afraid that if she stares admiringly at them without touching them it will curse them. So it started out as kind of a good-natured joke about her mom, but now we like to tease each other about giving people the evil eye. The best was one time Maddi sent me a text message while I was driving, so I flipped my phone up to read it and it said, "I'm sad that you had to leave today, so I'm sending you the ojo via text message." I laughed so hard I almost ran off the road, which I guess means it worked.
1. Did you know that the only real difference between Jello and glue is that Jello has some sugar and flavoring? Otherwise, there's pretty much no difference at all. Jello is made up of the same animal by-products and skins that make up glue. Or so I heard on the radio today, anyway. I came into the program a few seconds into it, so it's possible that they may have been talking about Jello past and not Jello present, but I'm pretty sure that they're talking about modern Jello. And while I sort of knew this already, I never really thought about it before until today. I'm just grateful that I was never a big fan of Jello in the first place. With that said, I'm sure Jello isn't any more disgusting than half of what I eat on a daily basis. The difference is that normally I just don't think much about what I'm eating, but now I can't stop thinking, "Jello! Cow hooves! Skin!" And now you can enjoy that appetizing thought as well. You're welcome.
2. I talked to Roomie for a couple of hours last night. I'd called her to ask her a question about shoes for the wedding and the next thing I know two hours had gone by. That's how it is with us. At one point I asked her whether or not she is going to wear a veil and she said she is and then she said, "Do you know why brides wear veils?" and I said, "No, I never thought about it before," and she told me that someone told her that back in the medieval days (I don't know what country's medieval days we were talking about) the bride and her bridesmaids all wore matching dresses, and the only thing that distinguished the bride was her veil. She wore the veil to cover her face so that demons couldn't give her the evil eye and curse her on her wedding day, and the bridesmaids wore matching dresses so that the demons would get confused and give the evil eye to the bridesmaids instead. I was like, "Wait, so I get to absorb all the ojo* on your wedding day?" and she said, "Yes!" and I said, "Awesome!" Glad to know that I'll be soaking up the evil spirits. Anything for my Roomie!
3. My dog is capable of eating an entire McDonald's hamburger in less than ten seconds. It's his third birthday today so we took a Car Ride! to McDonald's to get him a hamburger. He ate the meat first, then the bun, and he managed to eat the entire thing in the time I was opening a ketchup packet. I love my dog.
*Maddi and I love joking about giving people the ojo. Her mom is one of those cute old Mexican women who goes around touching babies because she's afraid that if she stares admiringly at them without touching them it will curse them. So it started out as kind of a good-natured joke about her mom, but now we like to tease each other about giving people the evil eye. The best was one time Maddi sent me a text message while I was driving, so I flipped my phone up to read it and it said, "I'm sad that you had to leave today, so I'm sending you the ojo via text message." I laughed so hard I almost ran off the road, which I guess means it worked.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
I Know Where I Want it To Go
Have you guys heard of Psapp? I'm sure you already have, since I'm usually a good six months to a year late when it comes to music. And if you're one of those people that's really into the whole music scene, I'm about an entire decade behind you. So, yeah, you probably already know about this group, but if you don't, you should check them out. Their song "Hi" is on the latest Disaronno commercial, and I kept hearing it and thought it was incredibly catchy. Also, I was pretty sure I'd heard it and liked it on Grey's Anatomy before (which makes sense, since apparently Psapp does the Grey's theme song). So I asked Google who sang the song on the Disaronno commercial and now I know about Psapp and I can't stop watching all of their quirky music videos on YouTube. I recommend you watch them, too. Maybe it won't be your thing, but it will give you important insight into the sort of music I like to listen to when I'm dancing by myself in my kitchen while making pancakes for dinner (always for dinner and never for breakfast).
P.S.-How on earth did anyone ever live without the internet? Do you know how many times a day I Google things? I'm going to give a conservative estimate and say that I Google for one reason or another at least a ten times a day. Here are just a few things I have googled in the past 24 hours, according to my search history:
"song on Disaronno commercial"
"Julian Beck+obituary"
"sploog"
"splooge" [I did not actually look at any of the websites brought up by this query, I swear. I was just trying to see the amount of hits for each spelling so that I could settle a debate-with myself-about the most proper way to spell it. Because it's critical to my daily life to be able to spell "splooge" correctly. Isn't that true for you as well? And yes, I decided that "splooge" is the proper spelling, which is what I had been thinking all along]
"Texas Centennial Exposition"
"Is Tyler Perry gay?"
"How to bake a potato in the microwave"
"2008 Academy Awards"
"P.F. Chang's+average check"
I Google all. day. long. I just love the fact that whenever a question pops into my head about anything I can Google it, and while I may not get an exact answer, I get several potential answers and can immediately get a sense of what information is out there.
And I'm so happy that I get to be a graduate student now, as opposed to in the dark ages of card catalogs and typewriters. How the hell anyone ever managed to write a paper without a computer and a university-provided subscription to multiple databases of journal articles is beyond me.
And YouTube! Today I gave a well-received presentation using nothing but video footage I found on YouTube, amazing stuff from the 1960s and 1970s that doesn't exist on DVD yet but somehow ended up on the internet.
Alright, that's enough of my Ode to the Internet. I'm not actually drunk right now, believe it or not, I'm just feeling a little loopy from a combination of too many conversation hearts and too little sleep. This was a really hectic week. I had presentations due in both my Tuesday and Thursday classes. We have to present pretty much every single week in my Tuesday class. It's mentally exhausting, because you spend a few days building up to it and then you do it and you think, "Yes! Done with my presentation!" and then it immediately hits you that you have to start the whole process over again pretty much right away. I'm telling you, grad school is all about riding the waves, and they come fast and furious in this course. Anyway, I'm used to having a lot of work due for Tuesday but I don't normally have to do presentations for my Thursday class (we only do two the whole semester) so that was a lot of extra work thrown into this week. On top of that, I also had my independent study meeting this week. Dr. AMP and I only meet every other week, and this was one of our on weeks so I had to finish up a bunch of reading for my project with him. Then there was the usual amount of reading that has to get done each week whether you're scheduled to do presentations or not and, well, there wasn't much time to do anything other than work this week. I had so much to do that I wasn't able to take a real break all week. Basically, when I got tired of one task I could switch to another, but quitting work entirely wasn't an option. Like I said, it was a hectic week.
Thank goodness I do pretty well under the pressure of having a long to-do list, and thank goodness that every week is not as busy as this one. I do still have a lot of work to do between now and next Wednesday, but most of it is just reading, which I pretty much always enjoy (yes, really). And next week is a short week because I'm going to a conference on Thursday.
I keep forgetting that I have to get on a plane a week from today. I'm excited about it, though. There are seven of us going from my university. That's a really big number of people from one school, especially since this conference is big but not one of the two huge ones in my field. I'd call it a mid-sized conference. So we're definitely going to dominate. Which is funny, because it's a regional conference that's not even for our region of the country. Ha. Two of my friends from my MA program are going to be there, too, and I'm really looking forward to seeing them since I haven't seen either of them since May. Anyway, I'm mostly looking forward to getting to hang out with so many friends well away from the school setting, and hopefully there will be the opportunity to do some networking as well.
And on the very bright side, once I get back from the conference there are only two more weeks of school until spring break. Which is blowing my mind, frankly. This semester is going by incredibly fast.
I'm off to bed to read a magazine for a change. I'm kind of hoping it snows again tonight. We had several hours of snow on Wednesday (of course on Wednesday, since that's the day I have to walk miles to class, remember?) but the ground wasn't cold enough for it to stick. They're saying we could get another inch or two tonight, though. I could use one more snowstorm to make my winter complete (but no more after that, though. I'm actually still a big wuss about winter, and I'm not feelin' the whole snow-possible-until-April thing).
P.S.-How on earth did anyone ever live without the internet? Do you know how many times a day I Google things? I'm going to give a conservative estimate and say that I Google for one reason or another at least a ten times a day. Here are just a few things I have googled in the past 24 hours, according to my search history:
"song on Disaronno commercial"
"Julian Beck+obituary"
"sploog"
"splooge" [I did not actually look at any of the websites brought up by this query, I swear. I was just trying to see the amount of hits for each spelling so that I could settle a debate-with myself-about the most proper way to spell it. Because it's critical to my daily life to be able to spell "splooge" correctly. Isn't that true for you as well? And yes, I decided that "splooge" is the proper spelling, which is what I had been thinking all along]
"Texas Centennial Exposition"
"Is Tyler Perry gay?"
"How to bake a potato in the microwave"
"2008 Academy Awards"
"P.F. Chang's+average check"
I Google all. day. long. I just love the fact that whenever a question pops into my head about anything I can Google it, and while I may not get an exact answer, I get several potential answers and can immediately get a sense of what information is out there.
And I'm so happy that I get to be a graduate student now, as opposed to in the dark ages of card catalogs and typewriters. How the hell anyone ever managed to write a paper without a computer and a university-provided subscription to multiple databases of journal articles is beyond me.
And YouTube! Today I gave a well-received presentation using nothing but video footage I found on YouTube, amazing stuff from the 1960s and 1970s that doesn't exist on DVD yet but somehow ended up on the internet.
Alright, that's enough of my Ode to the Internet. I'm not actually drunk right now, believe it or not, I'm just feeling a little loopy from a combination of too many conversation hearts and too little sleep. This was a really hectic week. I had presentations due in both my Tuesday and Thursday classes. We have to present pretty much every single week in my Tuesday class. It's mentally exhausting, because you spend a few days building up to it and then you do it and you think, "Yes! Done with my presentation!" and then it immediately hits you that you have to start the whole process over again pretty much right away. I'm telling you, grad school is all about riding the waves, and they come fast and furious in this course. Anyway, I'm used to having a lot of work due for Tuesday but I don't normally have to do presentations for my Thursday class (we only do two the whole semester) so that was a lot of extra work thrown into this week. On top of that, I also had my independent study meeting this week. Dr. AMP and I only meet every other week, and this was one of our on weeks so I had to finish up a bunch of reading for my project with him. Then there was the usual amount of reading that has to get done each week whether you're scheduled to do presentations or not and, well, there wasn't much time to do anything other than work this week. I had so much to do that I wasn't able to take a real break all week. Basically, when I got tired of one task I could switch to another, but quitting work entirely wasn't an option. Like I said, it was a hectic week.
Thank goodness I do pretty well under the pressure of having a long to-do list, and thank goodness that every week is not as busy as this one. I do still have a lot of work to do between now and next Wednesday, but most of it is just reading, which I pretty much always enjoy (yes, really). And next week is a short week because I'm going to a conference on Thursday.
I keep forgetting that I have to get on a plane a week from today. I'm excited about it, though. There are seven of us going from my university. That's a really big number of people from one school, especially since this conference is big but not one of the two huge ones in my field. I'd call it a mid-sized conference. So we're definitely going to dominate. Which is funny, because it's a regional conference that's not even for our region of the country. Ha. Two of my friends from my MA program are going to be there, too, and I'm really looking forward to seeing them since I haven't seen either of them since May. Anyway, I'm mostly looking forward to getting to hang out with so many friends well away from the school setting, and hopefully there will be the opportunity to do some networking as well.
And on the very bright side, once I get back from the conference there are only two more weeks of school until spring break. Which is blowing my mind, frankly. This semester is going by incredibly fast.
I'm off to bed to read a magazine for a change. I'm kind of hoping it snows again tonight. We had several hours of snow on Wednesday (of course on Wednesday, since that's the day I have to walk miles to class, remember?) but the ground wasn't cold enough for it to stick. They're saying we could get another inch or two tonight, though. I could use one more snowstorm to make my winter complete (but no more after that, though. I'm actually still a big wuss about winter, and I'm not feelin' the whole snow-possible-until-April thing).
Friday, February 15, 2008
Stolen Meme
I stole this from Sara, who didn't tag me, either, but who needs to be tagged when you're trying to avoid actually doing productive things, like reading for classes? Not me!
What was I doing 10 years ago?
Ten years ago I was a high school freshman. At school I was taking Theatre I, Dance, English, and Algebra. Interestingly, the Theatre class, which you would think would be the most interesting, is the one that I have almost no memories of at all.
I loved that dance class, where my friend Jessi would make me laugh every morning until my stomach ached. In true fifteen year-old fashion, she and her boyfriend were perpetually breaking up and getting back together, and whenever they were together they celebrated their anniversary weekly. Which is I guess what you have to do when you can only manage to stay together for three weeks at a time. Eventually they started having sex, which I found very exciting and scandalous-in-a-good-way because I hadn't even had a serious kiss at that point. Despite the hours of goofing off with Jessi in dance class, I did audition and make the dance team at the end of the semester. The team was fun, too, but nothing was as fun as that first semester.
It was about this time ten years ago that my English teacher had an actual mental breakdown right in the middle of our class. She was ranting about how terrible our assignments had been, and she finished up the rant with something to the effect of, "You people don't even know what an apostrophe is!" and then she slammed her hands on the podium and stormed out of the classroom, leaving all of us sitting there, staring at each other in open-mouthed silence. She never came back that semester. In retrospect, I am sure there were much bigger issues going on than our issues with apostrophes. We had a substitute for a while after that and then got transferred to another teacher. We learned about archetypes and read The Once and Future King and Homer.
My Algebra class was utterly horrible. The teacher had absolutely no control, and none of my friends were in the class with me since they'd all taken Algebra in 8th grade (I was too busy doing artsy electives instead because I've always disliked numbers). Very little learning went on in that classroom because people were too busy flinging stuff out of the second story window and lighting notebooks on fire. I am not hyperbolizing, those things actually happened. It was like spending 90 minutes in the madhouse every afternoon. I was kind of afraid of 3/4ths of the class and everyone else wasn't at all interested in me, so I mostly hid out in a corner. There was only one guy that I ever talked to in that class, but we ran in completely different social circles and my high school was huge and I never talked to him again after that semester. Last year, he found me on MySpace and left a sweet message saying he has always remembered me and how funny and nice I was to him in that class.
I was still eating lunch every day with most of the girls I had been friends with in middle school, but it was becoming increasingly clear that most of us would drift apart, not because of fighting but just because we had less and less in common all the time. I spent more and more time with Kristen and Melissa, who would stay my closest friends throughout high school. Since we didn't drive yet, Kristen's dad drove us to and from school, even though I lived close enough that I could have walked. Every single afternoon he would say, "Hi girls! How was school!?" in the exact same tone of voice and in unison we would reply, "Fine," and that would be the extent of the discussion most of the time.
We were all members of the Teen Volunteer Club (mostly because Melissa had a crush on the president) and we were some of the only freshmen that went to freshmen class meetings (again, more because of the chance that certain guys would be there than because we actually cared all that much about fundraising). We were still young enough that the biggest event in our social lives was having sleepovers at each other's houses or maybe having someone's mom drive us to the movie theatre once in a while. The three of us all had crushes on the same guys, but dating was just a theory and not remotely a fact for us at that point, so it didn't really matter. Guys and who was dating and who wasn't dating wouldn't become an issue for a few years yet. We were lucky to get to be friends for a long time before we started having those kinds of fights. Freshman year, I had a mental list of about six guys that I "crushed on" to various degrees, and a single smile in the hallway was something worth analyzing. [I should point out that I don't think I would want to date the adult version of a single one of those guys.]
I wore baggy jeans and carried a purple backpack and I hadn't yet made peace with the fact that I have curly hair so I used to sleep with it in Velcro rollers every night so that I could make it into a smooth pony tail in the morning. Sometimes I could talk my mom into french braiding it, and that was my favorite.
I still have my journals from that year, and when I read them now I'm amazed at how they tell me everything about what other people in my life were doing, but very little about how I felt about it. I'm glad I'm confident enough now to be happy with my hair. I wish I could recover the part of me that was capable of having heart-fluttering crushes on half a dozen guys at once.
What are 5 things on my to-do list?
My actual to-do list is quite boring at the moment, so here are five things on my lifelong to-do list:
1. Earn the PhD
2. Visit at least one location on every continent including Antarctica
3. Have a baby
4. Become a leading expert on something so that I get called to speak on NPR or the History Channel
5. Publish something (book, article, short story, whatever)
What would I do with a billion dollars?
First of all, I'd invest a lot of it really well so that there would be no way I could accidentally blow through it all and so that my entire family would be set for generations. Then I'd start spending. I'd buy my dad a boat and a lake to put it in. I'd make my brother the owner of the Chicago Cubs. Mom and my sister can have whatever lavish gifts they decide they want, too. I'd give a million or two to each of my friends with student loan debt. I'd staff a private jet and a yacht and spend lots of time traveling. I'd still finish my degree, but there'd be no stress about finding a job. I'd do a ton of philanthropy. I'd give money to dog rescue, I'd establish regular and study abroad scholarships at each of my universities, maybe I'd even donate a building or two. I'd give a ton of money to science and arts funding. I'd get a chef, a personal trainer, a driver, and a masseuse. And I'd never look at a price tag on a clothing item again.
3 of my bad habits:
1. I fidget pretty much non-stop with my rings and earrings and my hair, if it's down.
2. I'm the queen of saying, "I'll be there in five minutes," when I actually mean "twenty five minutes."
3. I text message while driving.
5 places I have lived:
1. Hometown
2. College City
3. MA Town
4. London
5. Here
5 jobs I have had:
1. Valet Captain [I did not text message while driving other people's cars]
2. Box office manager
3. Waitress
4. Bartender
5. Teaching Assistant
Things people don't know about me:
There's not much that people don't know about me. I honestly can't think of a single event in my life or element of my personality that you wouldn't eventually find out about if you knew me long enough. I kind of wish I had secrets, but I don't. I mean, there are certain things I don't tell certain people. I obviously would rather my professors not know about my sex life, for example. But in general, nothing is completely and utterly off limits. Here are a few things you may or may not know, depending on how well you know me.
1. The last two times I voted, I voted for Bush because that is who my father suggested I vote for (Republican fiscal policies are always better for small business owners), and I didn't really care enough to actually decide who I wanted in office. This time around, I'm going to cast my own vote.
2. I let my dog lick leftovers off my plates and silverware before I put them in the dishwasher, and if my cat sneakily manages to get a few laps of the milk in my cereal bowl, I'll eat the rest of the cereal anyway. It hasn't killed me yet.
3. Whenever I'm in a new relationship, or am doing well in my classes, or basically whenever anything good is happening, I don't want to talk about it at all for fear that the minute I talk about it, it will stop being true.
4. I really want to be on Jeopardy!, but I'm afraid if I ever actually got on the show that I would never buzz in on time, or that I would miss something pathetically easy and all of my colleagues would mock me forever.
5. I highlight my books as I read, then go back and type up reading notes based on what I highlighted. I don't believe in the sticky note method, or in writing notes in the margins of books. I don't believe in highlighting novels or plays, however. For some reason I only highlight non-fiction.
What was I doing 10 years ago?
Ten years ago I was a high school freshman. At school I was taking Theatre I, Dance, English, and Algebra. Interestingly, the Theatre class, which you would think would be the most interesting, is the one that I have almost no memories of at all.
I loved that dance class, where my friend Jessi would make me laugh every morning until my stomach ached. In true fifteen year-old fashion, she and her boyfriend were perpetually breaking up and getting back together, and whenever they were together they celebrated their anniversary weekly. Which is I guess what you have to do when you can only manage to stay together for three weeks at a time. Eventually they started having sex, which I found very exciting and scandalous-in-a-good-way because I hadn't even had a serious kiss at that point. Despite the hours of goofing off with Jessi in dance class, I did audition and make the dance team at the end of the semester. The team was fun, too, but nothing was as fun as that first semester.
It was about this time ten years ago that my English teacher had an actual mental breakdown right in the middle of our class. She was ranting about how terrible our assignments had been, and she finished up the rant with something to the effect of, "You people don't even know what an apostrophe is!" and then she slammed her hands on the podium and stormed out of the classroom, leaving all of us sitting there, staring at each other in open-mouthed silence. She never came back that semester. In retrospect, I am sure there were much bigger issues going on than our issues with apostrophes. We had a substitute for a while after that and then got transferred to another teacher. We learned about archetypes and read The Once and Future King and Homer.
My Algebra class was utterly horrible. The teacher had absolutely no control, and none of my friends were in the class with me since they'd all taken Algebra in 8th grade (I was too busy doing artsy electives instead because I've always disliked numbers). Very little learning went on in that classroom because people were too busy flinging stuff out of the second story window and lighting notebooks on fire. I am not hyperbolizing, those things actually happened. It was like spending 90 minutes in the madhouse every afternoon. I was kind of afraid of 3/4ths of the class and everyone else wasn't at all interested in me, so I mostly hid out in a corner. There was only one guy that I ever talked to in that class, but we ran in completely different social circles and my high school was huge and I never talked to him again after that semester. Last year, he found me on MySpace and left a sweet message saying he has always remembered me and how funny and nice I was to him in that class.
I was still eating lunch every day with most of the girls I had been friends with in middle school, but it was becoming increasingly clear that most of us would drift apart, not because of fighting but just because we had less and less in common all the time. I spent more and more time with Kristen and Melissa, who would stay my closest friends throughout high school. Since we didn't drive yet, Kristen's dad drove us to and from school, even though I lived close enough that I could have walked. Every single afternoon he would say, "Hi girls! How was school!?" in the exact same tone of voice and in unison we would reply, "Fine," and that would be the extent of the discussion most of the time.
We were all members of the Teen Volunteer Club (mostly because Melissa had a crush on the president) and we were some of the only freshmen that went to freshmen class meetings (again, more because of the chance that certain guys would be there than because we actually cared all that much about fundraising). We were still young enough that the biggest event in our social lives was having sleepovers at each other's houses or maybe having someone's mom drive us to the movie theatre once in a while. The three of us all had crushes on the same guys, but dating was just a theory and not remotely a fact for us at that point, so it didn't really matter. Guys and who was dating and who wasn't dating wouldn't become an issue for a few years yet. We were lucky to get to be friends for a long time before we started having those kinds of fights. Freshman year, I had a mental list of about six guys that I "crushed on" to various degrees, and a single smile in the hallway was something worth analyzing. [I should point out that I don't think I would want to date the adult version of a single one of those guys.]
I wore baggy jeans and carried a purple backpack and I hadn't yet made peace with the fact that I have curly hair so I used to sleep with it in Velcro rollers every night so that I could make it into a smooth pony tail in the morning. Sometimes I could talk my mom into french braiding it, and that was my favorite.
I still have my journals from that year, and when I read them now I'm amazed at how they tell me everything about what other people in my life were doing, but very little about how I felt about it. I'm glad I'm confident enough now to be happy with my hair. I wish I could recover the part of me that was capable of having heart-fluttering crushes on half a dozen guys at once.
What are 5 things on my to-do list?
My actual to-do list is quite boring at the moment, so here are five things on my lifelong to-do list:
1. Earn the PhD
2. Visit at least one location on every continent including Antarctica
3. Have a baby
4. Become a leading expert on something so that I get called to speak on NPR or the History Channel
5. Publish something (book, article, short story, whatever)
What would I do with a billion dollars?
First of all, I'd invest a lot of it really well so that there would be no way I could accidentally blow through it all and so that my entire family would be set for generations. Then I'd start spending. I'd buy my dad a boat and a lake to put it in. I'd make my brother the owner of the Chicago Cubs. Mom and my sister can have whatever lavish gifts they decide they want, too. I'd give a million or two to each of my friends with student loan debt. I'd staff a private jet and a yacht and spend lots of time traveling. I'd still finish my degree, but there'd be no stress about finding a job. I'd do a ton of philanthropy. I'd give money to dog rescue, I'd establish regular and study abroad scholarships at each of my universities, maybe I'd even donate a building or two. I'd give a ton of money to science and arts funding. I'd get a chef, a personal trainer, a driver, and a masseuse. And I'd never look at a price tag on a clothing item again.
3 of my bad habits:
1. I fidget pretty much non-stop with my rings and earrings and my hair, if it's down.
2. I'm the queen of saying, "I'll be there in five minutes," when I actually mean "twenty five minutes."
3. I text message while driving.
5 places I have lived:
1. Hometown
2. College City
3. MA Town
4. London
5. Here
5 jobs I have had:
1. Valet Captain [I did not text message while driving other people's cars]
2. Box office manager
3. Waitress
4. Bartender
5. Teaching Assistant
Things people don't know about me:
There's not much that people don't know about me. I honestly can't think of a single event in my life or element of my personality that you wouldn't eventually find out about if you knew me long enough. I kind of wish I had secrets, but I don't. I mean, there are certain things I don't tell certain people. I obviously would rather my professors not know about my sex life, for example. But in general, nothing is completely and utterly off limits. Here are a few things you may or may not know, depending on how well you know me.
1. The last two times I voted, I voted for Bush because that is who my father suggested I vote for (Republican fiscal policies are always better for small business owners), and I didn't really care enough to actually decide who I wanted in office. This time around, I'm going to cast my own vote.
2. I let my dog lick leftovers off my plates and silverware before I put them in the dishwasher, and if my cat sneakily manages to get a few laps of the milk in my cereal bowl, I'll eat the rest of the cereal anyway. It hasn't killed me yet.
3. Whenever I'm in a new relationship, or am doing well in my classes, or basically whenever anything good is happening, I don't want to talk about it at all for fear that the minute I talk about it, it will stop being true.
4. I really want to be on Jeopardy!, but I'm afraid if I ever actually got on the show that I would never buzz in on time, or that I would miss something pathetically easy and all of my colleagues would mock me forever.
5. I highlight my books as I read, then go back and type up reading notes based on what I highlighted. I don't believe in the sticky note method, or in writing notes in the margins of books. I don't believe in highlighting novels or plays, however. For some reason I only highlight non-fiction.
21 and Other Non-Events
Well, this week went by incredibly fast. I don't really know why. It's not like I was any busier than I usually am (I was actually somewhat less busy). Still, one minute it was Friday and then, blink, Friday again! Anyway, on to the random junk I feel like rambling about today:
-The weather sucked this week. When my radio alarm clock went off at 7:15 on Monday morning, the first thing I heard was, "It's 18 degrees in the city with the windchill making it feel like negative 5! Colder in the suburbs!" Thanks, dude. Because I really love the days when I have to get up at 7:15, and that whole negative 5 thing makes the idea of climbing out from under the covers SO much more appealing. On Tuesday it was cold and dreary. On Wednesday it was still cold and it rained all day long. Wednesday is the day I walk literally 4 miles across campus (two miles roundtrip in the morning from my office to the buildings where I teach, and another two miles in the afternoon from my office to my class and back to the parking garage; yes, there's a bus, but I hate waiting for it, plus I'm usually all for any excuse to get some extra exercise). Walking in the pouring rain sucked as much as you might imagine. I don't own rain boots, mostly because I don't really understand rainboots. I've never lived somewhere where I needed rainboots before. I grew up in the desert, and while it rained fairly often in College Town and MA Town, it was usually warm enough there that having slightly wet feet wasn't that big of a deal. So, rainboots. Do you wear them just to walk to work and then change into regular shoes that you're carrying in a bag or something? Or, in my case, would I just sit in class for three hours wearing rainboots? Because I'm thinking that would look really stupid unless you were wearing jeans (rainboots over jeans looks okay). And I don't know why I'm vain enough to care about stupid-looking rainboots when I don't pretend to actually have much fasion sense, but I am. So how does it work? I can see wearing them if I had an office job where I was then going to stay inside all day; then it would make sense to wear the boots to work, change into nice shoes, then put the boots back on at the end of the day. But I can't see myself standing up in front of my classes wearing slacks or a skirt and rainboots, but who wants to carry another pair of shoes across campus to change into them for just an hour or two? Basically, I don't know how galoshes fit into my lifestyle (Galoshes! What a great word!) Maybe someone can enlighten me on this whole thing, because it would be nice not to have soaking wet, freezing feet like I did all day on Wednesday. Luckily, the weather seems to be marginally improving. At least it's not raining today. Enough about the weather, though. It's February, I think it's safe to say that the weather sucks everywhere right now and talking about it isn't going to make it nicer.
-Tuesday was a momentous day in my family. My baby brother is finally, FINALLY 21! This means my entire immediate family can now drink together legally! I realize this probably isn't a huge deal in many families, but as you know, drinking together is a big bonding activity in my family. We're a family that likes restaurants and bars and nightlife. When we were very little, I guess my parents just couldn't indulge as much as they wanted to, which, honestly, they never seemed to resent; all three of us were wanted children, so it's not like my parents didn't know what they were getting into. They'd take us to restaurants with them often, and they drank in front of us, but I honestly don't remember there ever being an instance in my childhood where I thought they had drunk too much to be parenting responsibly. They sometimes laugh now about moments where all the adults in a situation had had a bit too much to drink, but we kids never felt unsafe, which I think is a very big thing about compromising drinking and parenting (and yes, I think it should be a compromise; I have never believed that you have to alter your whole entire lifestyle just because you have a child. Make some sacrifices, absolutely, give up everything about your previous lifestyle cold turkey, no). As we got older, my parents could leave us alone when they wanted to go out. Once I turned 21, though, things got complicated. It wasn't a very big deal, though. I could go out with Mom and Dad if I wanted to, and my brother and sister could do some under-21 thing together and it wasn't ideal but it was alright. Once my sister turned 21, though, it started seeming really unfair. We'd be on vacation or my parents would be visiting us or vice versa, and we'd want to go to a bar or have drinks at dinner, but my brother couldn't be included. For the past couple of years there have been a ton of times when we wanted to go places but had to either leave my brother behind (which wasn't fair to him) or not go at all (which isn't fun for anyone). Once we even all went to Las Vegas for my sister's 21st birthday and my brother opted not to go because he thought he'd be bored. Having to be the youngest sucked for him in this situation, basically.
But now he's finally 21 and he actually survived his birthday so we can all go out together! Which is what we'll all be doing when we go to Las Vegas for his 21st birthday next month! (P.S.-I never got a trip to Vegas for my 21st birthday, I guess because my parents hadn't hit their midlife crisis yet and weren't trying to think up half a dozen different reasons to go clubbing in Vegas each year. Still, I think I'll pull a guilt trip about this in a few years and make everyone go to Vegas for my 30th).
Apparently my brother's birthday celebration was pretty crazy, as it should be. I feel like if you didn't do something stupid on your 21st birthday, then you didn't do it right. I'm a big fan of ritual in life, and throwing up on your 21st birthday? It's not fun, but it's a rite of passage. My brother might win, as far as 21st birthday stories go in my family. My own was relatively tame. As soon as it was midnight, I went to this dive bar with a bunch of random people (seriously, the night was kind of an anomaly: there were several people there that I rarely hung out with, and I also only went to that bar once or twice more in my life). The only good thing about the bar was that if you were old enough to drink they would stamp your hand with a stamp that said "BUS DRIVER". Why does a BUS DRIVER stamp even exist? I don't know. But somewhere there are pictures of me proudly and drunkenly displaying my BUS DRIVER stamp. Anyway, to this day I still can't think about drinking vodka and cranberry juice without feeling slightly queasy. There was a really weird country band at the bar that night. I don't remember much about the band, except that there was a guy playing the spoons (really) and they weren't very good. The last thing I remember is my friend Ian lying to the band and telling them I was his girlfriend in the hopes that they would let him borrow their guitars to play some different music for my birthday. The next thing I vaguely remember is being back at my apartment, sitting on the floor beside my toilet and moaning about how I wasn't going to be able to wake up the next day to go to class, but I HAD to go to class (not for a real reason, just because I'm so flippin' responsible). Apparently I also looked up at my roommate, whom I had been living with for 2 1/2 years at that point, and happily exclaimed, "Oh yeah! You live here!" And I shrieked a lot. That's still true, by the way. When I get very, very drunk, I get excited about everything and very shrieky. Supposedly, there are times when I don't even shriek words, I just shriek. I'm sure that's lots of fun for everyone around me. Anyway, I woke up the next morning in my own bed, wondering who had put me in my pjs (thanks, Kiki and Roomie!) and thinking, "I hope I didn't throw up in Kate's car..."(I didn't). I did drag myself to class, even though I felt like hell, and I spent most of the rest of the day sleeping on a couch outside my department's main office, which wasn't as weird as it sounds. There was always somebody, or multiple somebodies, sleeping on that couch. I was so nauseous I couldn't even drink water until 5:00 that afternoon, but by 11:00 I was ready to go out drinking again. Amazing, how that works. So I made my first of many (MANY) trips to the Pub. Ah, college.
On my sister's 21st birthday we were in our hometown for Christmas, so I took her out drinking with one of her friends and Phil and some of his friends. She wins the prize for being the only one of the three of us kids to throw up in a car on her 21st. At least it was her own car. I was the designated driver, but I (smartly) refused to drive unless we took her car. My favorite moment of her birthday was when she pulled her head back into the car after throwing up as we cruised down the freeway and oh-so-sadly and pathetically sighed, "I'm the throw-up MONster!" To this day, I'll still sometimes say, "I'm the throw-up MONster," in her sad little voice just to make myself laugh.
As for my brother, he apparently drank to the point of throwing up (in a bathroom, at least) and then passing out in the backseat of my sister's car. She ended up taking him to her house and putting him to bed on her couch. But here's the problem with my brother: you know how with most drunk people, once you have managed to get them into bed everything is okay? They'll just stay asleep and if you're a really good friend you stay up and check on them once in a while to make sure they don't vomit and choke? Yeah. It doesn't work like that with my brother. When he drinks too much, he sleep walks. So even once you've successfully gotten him into bed, you never know where the heck he's going to end up, or what he's going to do while he's sleep walking. His favorite thing to do is throw up and/or piss in places that aren't bathrooms. Notable occasions so far: in his closet (my sister had to teach him how to do laundry so he could wash all his clothes the next day before my mom got home), all over my bed at home (thankfully, I wasn't living at home at the time), and all over one of his best friends, who was sleeping on the floor of a spare bedroom at someone's house (gross beyond words). His birthday was the best (worst?) so far, though: when my sister put him to bed, he was wearing his pants and boxers. But he woke up completely naked! And his pants and boxers were nowhere to be found. My sister eventually found them in her garage, of all places. The best part is that my sister's poor roommate got up early to go to work and had to witness my brother's naked body sprawled on the living room couch. Poor girl.
Nobody I know has ever been able to beat Kiki's 21st birthday story, though. The story is a bit lengthy and really needs to be told in person to be truly enjoyed. The short version is that Kiki climbed into bed with the guy she'd been making out with in a hot tub all night and she couldn't figure out how he had fallen asleep so quickly and why he didn't feel like making out anymore. But she was drunk, so she went to sleep, and several hours later when the guy tried to kick her out of his bed she said something to the effect of, "Come on, Brian, we were making out all night, can't I just sleep here for a few more hours?" and he said, "I'm not Brian, I'm Donnie." She had gotten into bed with his roommate! There are so many puzzling things about this story, besides the obviously puzzling element of how the heck Kiki ended up in the wrong bed in the first place. Why didn't Donnie wake up when a random stranger climbed into his bed? Why on earth didn't it dawn on Brian to wonder what had happened to the girl he was hooking up with? This is probably one of my favorite stories ever, and for a year or so afterwards we sould occasionally spy one of the guys at the Pub and gasp, "Look, it's BrianSlashDonnie!", which is how we referred to both of them.
So yeah. My baby brother is 21 now, which makes me feel really old. It makes me feel old because for some reason my brain stalled on 23 and I can't seem to convince myself that I'm older than that, but there's just no way I can possibly be 23 if my brother is 21. Also, I remember when that kid was born. I remember standing on the railing of my mom's hospital bed, eating M&Ms and wondering why on earth the baby brother was so red. I just can't believe he's 21.
-I'm staying in City A this weekend. A friend who I made through my dog went out of town for the weekend and asked me to house and dog sit. My dog absolutely loves the dog I'm sitting for. She's a hound like him and they are so cute together that it almost kills me. I brought my cat down with me, too, and she likes him as well. I want a second dog so badly, but I know it's going to be several years before I have the space and money to get number two. Being with this second hound makes me realize how very low energy mine is, though. I mean, he likes to go for long walks and he has moments where he's very loud, but for the most part he just wants to sleep on the couch, preferably with a human for a pillow. Poor Molly keeps bounding up to him like, "Play with me! Play with me! Come on, let's go!" but nine times out of ten he just raises his eyebrow at her, grunts, and shifts to a more comfortable position on the cushion. Typical guy.
-Nicole wants to try to hook me up this weekend. She came into class on Monday and said, "So, *A*, I have a proposition for you." I immediately said, "You're going to try to hook me up with someone, aren't you?" She sheepishly replied, "Well, I don't know if you're open to that sort of thing, but...yes?" She then went on to tell me all about this guy she works with at her part-time job, but she started out by saying, "Well, let me tell you about him and you can see what you think. He's kind of little, but you're little, too, so I don't think he'll be littler than you. And, okay, he kind of likes Star Trek, but-" At that point I interrupted her and said, "Why exactly are you trying to hook us up?" and she said, "I'm telling you the bad things first. It wouldn't be fair for me to tell you he's great without also telling you the bad stuff." Fair enough. Nic then went on to tell me all of the good qualities she has seen in him, and she said that he's attractive. I suppose I trust Nic's opinion more or less since I like her boyfriend when he comes to visit, but I'm not exactly enthusiastic about matchmaking in general. I've never actually been set up with anyone before, but I've heard enough horror stories to know it rarely works out well. Then again, I'm not in a position where it's easy to meet anyone at all these days, so I figure I might as well meet the guy. I only agreed to go if Nic doesn't tell him anything about me, and she promised she wouldn't. So I'm supposed to meet her and a bunch of her co-workers for drinks after they get off work tomorrow night. At least it's convenient since I'm staying just a few metro stops away from the bar right now, and even if the guy ends up being a total bust I'll at least get to meet several of Nicole's coworkers, and I like meeting new people.
Alright, that's it. I'm gonna walk the dogs while the sun is out.
-The weather sucked this week. When my radio alarm clock went off at 7:15 on Monday morning, the first thing I heard was, "It's 18 degrees in the city with the windchill making it feel like negative 5! Colder in the suburbs!" Thanks, dude. Because I really love the days when I have to get up at 7:15, and that whole negative 5 thing makes the idea of climbing out from under the covers SO much more appealing. On Tuesday it was cold and dreary. On Wednesday it was still cold and it rained all day long. Wednesday is the day I walk literally 4 miles across campus (two miles roundtrip in the morning from my office to the buildings where I teach, and another two miles in the afternoon from my office to my class and back to the parking garage; yes, there's a bus, but I hate waiting for it, plus I'm usually all for any excuse to get some extra exercise). Walking in the pouring rain sucked as much as you might imagine. I don't own rain boots, mostly because I don't really understand rainboots. I've never lived somewhere where I needed rainboots before. I grew up in the desert, and while it rained fairly often in College Town and MA Town, it was usually warm enough there that having slightly wet feet wasn't that big of a deal. So, rainboots. Do you wear them just to walk to work and then change into regular shoes that you're carrying in a bag or something? Or, in my case, would I just sit in class for three hours wearing rainboots? Because I'm thinking that would look really stupid unless you were wearing jeans (rainboots over jeans looks okay). And I don't know why I'm vain enough to care about stupid-looking rainboots when I don't pretend to actually have much fasion sense, but I am. So how does it work? I can see wearing them if I had an office job where I was then going to stay inside all day; then it would make sense to wear the boots to work, change into nice shoes, then put the boots back on at the end of the day. But I can't see myself standing up in front of my classes wearing slacks or a skirt and rainboots, but who wants to carry another pair of shoes across campus to change into them for just an hour or two? Basically, I don't know how galoshes fit into my lifestyle (Galoshes! What a great word!) Maybe someone can enlighten me on this whole thing, because it would be nice not to have soaking wet, freezing feet like I did all day on Wednesday. Luckily, the weather seems to be marginally improving. At least it's not raining today. Enough about the weather, though. It's February, I think it's safe to say that the weather sucks everywhere right now and talking about it isn't going to make it nicer.
-Tuesday was a momentous day in my family. My baby brother is finally, FINALLY 21! This means my entire immediate family can now drink together legally! I realize this probably isn't a huge deal in many families, but as you know, drinking together is a big bonding activity in my family. We're a family that likes restaurants and bars and nightlife. When we were very little, I guess my parents just couldn't indulge as much as they wanted to, which, honestly, they never seemed to resent; all three of us were wanted children, so it's not like my parents didn't know what they were getting into. They'd take us to restaurants with them often, and they drank in front of us, but I honestly don't remember there ever being an instance in my childhood where I thought they had drunk too much to be parenting responsibly. They sometimes laugh now about moments where all the adults in a situation had had a bit too much to drink, but we kids never felt unsafe, which I think is a very big thing about compromising drinking and parenting (and yes, I think it should be a compromise; I have never believed that you have to alter your whole entire lifestyle just because you have a child. Make some sacrifices, absolutely, give up everything about your previous lifestyle cold turkey, no). As we got older, my parents could leave us alone when they wanted to go out. Once I turned 21, though, things got complicated. It wasn't a very big deal, though. I could go out with Mom and Dad if I wanted to, and my brother and sister could do some under-21 thing together and it wasn't ideal but it was alright. Once my sister turned 21, though, it started seeming really unfair. We'd be on vacation or my parents would be visiting us or vice versa, and we'd want to go to a bar or have drinks at dinner, but my brother couldn't be included. For the past couple of years there have been a ton of times when we wanted to go places but had to either leave my brother behind (which wasn't fair to him) or not go at all (which isn't fun for anyone). Once we even all went to Las Vegas for my sister's 21st birthday and my brother opted not to go because he thought he'd be bored. Having to be the youngest sucked for him in this situation, basically.
But now he's finally 21 and he actually survived his birthday so we can all go out together! Which is what we'll all be doing when we go to Las Vegas for his 21st birthday next month! (P.S.-I never got a trip to Vegas for my 21st birthday, I guess because my parents hadn't hit their midlife crisis yet and weren't trying to think up half a dozen different reasons to go clubbing in Vegas each year. Still, I think I'll pull a guilt trip about this in a few years and make everyone go to Vegas for my 30th).
Apparently my brother's birthday celebration was pretty crazy, as it should be. I feel like if you didn't do something stupid on your 21st birthday, then you didn't do it right. I'm a big fan of ritual in life, and throwing up on your 21st birthday? It's not fun, but it's a rite of passage. My brother might win, as far as 21st birthday stories go in my family. My own was relatively tame. As soon as it was midnight, I went to this dive bar with a bunch of random people (seriously, the night was kind of an anomaly: there were several people there that I rarely hung out with, and I also only went to that bar once or twice more in my life). The only good thing about the bar was that if you were old enough to drink they would stamp your hand with a stamp that said "BUS DRIVER". Why does a BUS DRIVER stamp even exist? I don't know. But somewhere there are pictures of me proudly and drunkenly displaying my BUS DRIVER stamp. Anyway, to this day I still can't think about drinking vodka and cranberry juice without feeling slightly queasy. There was a really weird country band at the bar that night. I don't remember much about the band, except that there was a guy playing the spoons (really) and they weren't very good. The last thing I remember is my friend Ian lying to the band and telling them I was his girlfriend in the hopes that they would let him borrow their guitars to play some different music for my birthday. The next thing I vaguely remember is being back at my apartment, sitting on the floor beside my toilet and moaning about how I wasn't going to be able to wake up the next day to go to class, but I HAD to go to class (not for a real reason, just because I'm so flippin' responsible). Apparently I also looked up at my roommate, whom I had been living with for 2 1/2 years at that point, and happily exclaimed, "Oh yeah! You live here!" And I shrieked a lot. That's still true, by the way. When I get very, very drunk, I get excited about everything and very shrieky. Supposedly, there are times when I don't even shriek words, I just shriek. I'm sure that's lots of fun for everyone around me. Anyway, I woke up the next morning in my own bed, wondering who had put me in my pjs (thanks, Kiki and Roomie!) and thinking, "I hope I didn't throw up in Kate's car..."(I didn't). I did drag myself to class, even though I felt like hell, and I spent most of the rest of the day sleeping on a couch outside my department's main office, which wasn't as weird as it sounds. There was always somebody, or multiple somebodies, sleeping on that couch. I was so nauseous I couldn't even drink water until 5:00 that afternoon, but by 11:00 I was ready to go out drinking again. Amazing, how that works. So I made my first of many (MANY) trips to the Pub. Ah, college.
On my sister's 21st birthday we were in our hometown for Christmas, so I took her out drinking with one of her friends and Phil and some of his friends. She wins the prize for being the only one of the three of us kids to throw up in a car on her 21st. At least it was her own car. I was the designated driver, but I (smartly) refused to drive unless we took her car. My favorite moment of her birthday was when she pulled her head back into the car after throwing up as we cruised down the freeway and oh-so-sadly and pathetically sighed, "I'm the throw-up MONster!" To this day, I'll still sometimes say, "I'm the throw-up MONster," in her sad little voice just to make myself laugh.
As for my brother, he apparently drank to the point of throwing up (in a bathroom, at least) and then passing out in the backseat of my sister's car. She ended up taking him to her house and putting him to bed on her couch. But here's the problem with my brother: you know how with most drunk people, once you have managed to get them into bed everything is okay? They'll just stay asleep and if you're a really good friend you stay up and check on them once in a while to make sure they don't vomit and choke? Yeah. It doesn't work like that with my brother. When he drinks too much, he sleep walks. So even once you've successfully gotten him into bed, you never know where the heck he's going to end up, or what he's going to do while he's sleep walking. His favorite thing to do is throw up and/or piss in places that aren't bathrooms. Notable occasions so far: in his closet (my sister had to teach him how to do laundry so he could wash all his clothes the next day before my mom got home), all over my bed at home (thankfully, I wasn't living at home at the time), and all over one of his best friends, who was sleeping on the floor of a spare bedroom at someone's house (gross beyond words). His birthday was the best (worst?) so far, though: when my sister put him to bed, he was wearing his pants and boxers. But he woke up completely naked! And his pants and boxers were nowhere to be found. My sister eventually found them in her garage, of all places. The best part is that my sister's poor roommate got up early to go to work and had to witness my brother's naked body sprawled on the living room couch. Poor girl.
Nobody I know has ever been able to beat Kiki's 21st birthday story, though. The story is a bit lengthy and really needs to be told in person to be truly enjoyed. The short version is that Kiki climbed into bed with the guy she'd been making out with in a hot tub all night and she couldn't figure out how he had fallen asleep so quickly and why he didn't feel like making out anymore. But she was drunk, so she went to sleep, and several hours later when the guy tried to kick her out of his bed she said something to the effect of, "Come on, Brian, we were making out all night, can't I just sleep here for a few more hours?" and he said, "I'm not Brian, I'm Donnie." She had gotten into bed with his roommate! There are so many puzzling things about this story, besides the obviously puzzling element of how the heck Kiki ended up in the wrong bed in the first place. Why didn't Donnie wake up when a random stranger climbed into his bed? Why on earth didn't it dawn on Brian to wonder what had happened to the girl he was hooking up with? This is probably one of my favorite stories ever, and for a year or so afterwards we sould occasionally spy one of the guys at the Pub and gasp, "Look, it's BrianSlashDonnie!", which is how we referred to both of them.
So yeah. My baby brother is 21 now, which makes me feel really old. It makes me feel old because for some reason my brain stalled on 23 and I can't seem to convince myself that I'm older than that, but there's just no way I can possibly be 23 if my brother is 21. Also, I remember when that kid was born. I remember standing on the railing of my mom's hospital bed, eating M&Ms and wondering why on earth the baby brother was so red. I just can't believe he's 21.
-I'm staying in City A this weekend. A friend who I made through my dog went out of town for the weekend and asked me to house and dog sit. My dog absolutely loves the dog I'm sitting for. She's a hound like him and they are so cute together that it almost kills me. I brought my cat down with me, too, and she likes him as well. I want a second dog so badly, but I know it's going to be several years before I have the space and money to get number two. Being with this second hound makes me realize how very low energy mine is, though. I mean, he likes to go for long walks and he has moments where he's very loud, but for the most part he just wants to sleep on the couch, preferably with a human for a pillow. Poor Molly keeps bounding up to him like, "Play with me! Play with me! Come on, let's go!" but nine times out of ten he just raises his eyebrow at her, grunts, and shifts to a more comfortable position on the cushion. Typical guy.
-Nicole wants to try to hook me up this weekend. She came into class on Monday and said, "So, *A*, I have a proposition for you." I immediately said, "You're going to try to hook me up with someone, aren't you?" She sheepishly replied, "Well, I don't know if you're open to that sort of thing, but...yes?" She then went on to tell me all about this guy she works with at her part-time job, but she started out by saying, "Well, let me tell you about him and you can see what you think. He's kind of little, but you're little, too, so I don't think he'll be littler than you. And, okay, he kind of likes Star Trek, but-" At that point I interrupted her and said, "Why exactly are you trying to hook us up?" and she said, "I'm telling you the bad things first. It wouldn't be fair for me to tell you he's great without also telling you the bad stuff." Fair enough. Nic then went on to tell me all of the good qualities she has seen in him, and she said that he's attractive. I suppose I trust Nic's opinion more or less since I like her boyfriend when he comes to visit, but I'm not exactly enthusiastic about matchmaking in general. I've never actually been set up with anyone before, but I've heard enough horror stories to know it rarely works out well. Then again, I'm not in a position where it's easy to meet anyone at all these days, so I figure I might as well meet the guy. I only agreed to go if Nic doesn't tell him anything about me, and she promised she wouldn't. So I'm supposed to meet her and a bunch of her co-workers for drinks after they get off work tomorrow night. At least it's convenient since I'm staying just a few metro stops away from the bar right now, and even if the guy ends up being a total bust I'll at least get to meet several of Nicole's coworkers, and I like meeting new people.
Alright, that's it. I'm gonna walk the dogs while the sun is out.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Endorsement
So I've been doing this Sparkpeople (www.sparkpeople.com) thing for three weeks now, and I'm really enjoying it. It appeals to my hyper-organized sensibilities. I thought for sure I'd have to stop tracking my eating once school started, but now that I'm in the habit I haven't stopped. It only takes about two minutes to log in after each meal and figure out how many calories I consumed, and since I have a computer in my office I can log anything I happen to eat at work, too. I suppose I won't be logging when I'm on vacation and away from all computers (even I'm not anal enough to keep a written record of everything I eat and log it in when I get back to a computer...I don't think...) but other than that I can log easily. The truth is I probably won't keep track of my progress when I'm on vacation anyway since that will be splurge time.
I didn't start doing this because I was worried about my weight (although, frankly, who wouldn't like to get a bit closer to her ideal body?) but because I was curious about how healthy I was. I think in general I have pretty healthy habits. I am lucky to not be an emotional eater (if anything I'm the opposite; when I get very sad or very stressed I get an upset stomach and have to force myself to eat) and my body generally makes relatively healthy choices for me (I've always preferred mustard to mayo, balsamic vinegar to ranch, I genuinely enjoy and get filled up by Lean Cuisine meals, etc.) I've also always been fairly active. I'm much less active now than I was when I was in high school and dancing for 2-3 hours most days, but I still do some form of physical activity most days, even if it's just leisurely walking the dog. I have a very strong mind-body connection and I literally feel not only physically but mentally "off" if I go more than 3 or 4 days without a workout. Apparently this is not the case with everyone. I have several friends here who have almost completely sedentary lifestyles, and I sometimes wonder how they keep from going insane under the pressure of our lives. Anyway, all of that is to say that I think I'm generally a pretty healthy person.
But this Sparkpeople thing has been pretty eye-opening. I realized that while I was doing okay, there are a lot of things I can do better food-wise. And in just three weeks I've found that my habits are changing a lot. I'm happy to report that it was pretty easy to up the protein content of my diet. I'm still not eating a ton of meat, but just little things have made a big difference. I love, love, love Laughing Cow cheese so I've been eating that pretty much every day, I've been putting chopped nuts on my salads and oatmeal...little things like that are now getting me to the proper protein range. The biggest challenge has been controlling the fat, but even that is not as hard as I thought.
The biggest thing that this is helping me to do is just think a bit more about my choices. For one thing, it has made me much more conscious of portion sizes. I'm also genetically lucky in that I don't need to eat a ton of food to feel full, so I was naturally doing good on portioning things like cereal, soup, etc. With some things, like pita chips or my beloved chalky conversation hearts (hooray for February!) I found that what I was considering a portion was actually smaller than the portion size listed on the bag. But with some things (cookies, salad dressing) I was eating two or more portions at a sitting. So it has been helpful to realize that, and it hasn't felt like a sacrifice at all to limit myself to proper-sized portions.
Here's the thing: I love food, and I am not into making any sacrifices at all when it comes to my eating. I take huge pleasure in eating good food. I have had meals that were better than sex. Seriously (well, better than some sex). So I've long claimed that I would never be able to diet. Now, though, I realize that's not entirely true. I could never limit the type of food I'm allowed to eat. I can, however, pay attention to how much I'm eating and what kinds of food I'm eating, and it turns out it's actually kind of...fun.
Since I'm not on a mission to lose any weight, I'm not super strict with myself. Some days I know I'm going to go over my recommended calorie limit and I just acknowledge that from the start so I don't feel disappointed about it. Usually, these are days when I know I'm going to be drinking. Nothing like thinking about all the empty calories in alcohol to make you think twice about having another beer! There was a day a couple of weeks ago where I had to acknowledge to myself as I entered my food totals for the night before that I'd had three beers and five vodka tonics. Uh, not exactly "everything in moderation." So, hey, added bonus: since I started tracking I've been drinking less when I go out. Anyway, I went way over on the day of the Super Bowl party and the night we went drinking in City A and when I went out for dinner for Mardi Gras (where the point was to be gluttonous) but other than that I've done really well.
The trick, I've discovered, is to put all the things I know I'm really going to want to eat that day onto the list early. Right now, for instance, I have Valentine's Day cookies that I absolutely love. My mom made some and sent them to me, and I also made a batch to take to my class on Tuesday night. They're pretty much nothing but butter and sugar and bleached flour. Am I going to eat them? Hell yeah I am! But if I know I'm going to eat two of them every day (and I am) then I put them on my food list at breakfast and then I know how many calories I have available for my actual meals that day. And it just helps me make better choices. If I know I'm gonna eat two cookies later, maybe I eat a Lean Cuisine for lunch instead of mac and cheese. Or I walk an extra mile to burn off the calories in one of those cookies. No biggie. It really is great. I guess I'm making a few sacrifices, but it doesn't feel like it at all.
One of the biggest things I've noticed is how much less soda I'm drinking. I used to drink at least two 12 oz. sodas a day. Then last year I cut myself back to just the 100 calorie cans and only allowed myself to have one a day. The only time I drank more than that was at restaurants, where I still tried to limit myself to just one (sometimes I was successful with that, sometimes I wasn't). Now with this new program, I'm making myself drink my full water bottle each day (32 oz.) and I realized today that I'm no longer feeling the need to drink a soda every day anymore. Part of it is the whole choice-making thing, because a lot of times I'd rather spend 100 calories on actual food than on soda, and part of it is just that I'm not craving it as much anymore.
Anyway, just thought I'd let you know how it's working out for me. I'm going to try to really stick to it for another few months, just until my body really knows what it needs and portioning becomes innate and not something I have to think about. If you're wanting to lose some weight, or if you're like me and you just think nutrition and fitness is interesting, you should try it out for a while. After all, it's free! I realize having to be organized enough to track your food doesn't appeal to everyone, but it's infinitely easier than trying to stick to some stupid diet plan, and you can be very flexible with it. Oh, and I don't use any of the message boards or motivational portions of the site, but I know some people really need the emotional motivation to get healthy, and the site seems to have plenty of that, too.
I didn't start doing this because I was worried about my weight (although, frankly, who wouldn't like to get a bit closer to her ideal body?) but because I was curious about how healthy I was. I think in general I have pretty healthy habits. I am lucky to not be an emotional eater (if anything I'm the opposite; when I get very sad or very stressed I get an upset stomach and have to force myself to eat) and my body generally makes relatively healthy choices for me (I've always preferred mustard to mayo, balsamic vinegar to ranch, I genuinely enjoy and get filled up by Lean Cuisine meals, etc.) I've also always been fairly active. I'm much less active now than I was when I was in high school and dancing for 2-3 hours most days, but I still do some form of physical activity most days, even if it's just leisurely walking the dog. I have a very strong mind-body connection and I literally feel not only physically but mentally "off" if I go more than 3 or 4 days without a workout. Apparently this is not the case with everyone. I have several friends here who have almost completely sedentary lifestyles, and I sometimes wonder how they keep from going insane under the pressure of our lives. Anyway, all of that is to say that I think I'm generally a pretty healthy person.
But this Sparkpeople thing has been pretty eye-opening. I realized that while I was doing okay, there are a lot of things I can do better food-wise. And in just three weeks I've found that my habits are changing a lot. I'm happy to report that it was pretty easy to up the protein content of my diet. I'm still not eating a ton of meat, but just little things have made a big difference. I love, love, love Laughing Cow cheese so I've been eating that pretty much every day, I've been putting chopped nuts on my salads and oatmeal...little things like that are now getting me to the proper protein range. The biggest challenge has been controlling the fat, but even that is not as hard as I thought.
The biggest thing that this is helping me to do is just think a bit more about my choices. For one thing, it has made me much more conscious of portion sizes. I'm also genetically lucky in that I don't need to eat a ton of food to feel full, so I was naturally doing good on portioning things like cereal, soup, etc. With some things, like pita chips or my beloved chalky conversation hearts (hooray for February!) I found that what I was considering a portion was actually smaller than the portion size listed on the bag. But with some things (cookies, salad dressing) I was eating two or more portions at a sitting. So it has been helpful to realize that, and it hasn't felt like a sacrifice at all to limit myself to proper-sized portions.
Here's the thing: I love food, and I am not into making any sacrifices at all when it comes to my eating. I take huge pleasure in eating good food. I have had meals that were better than sex. Seriously (well, better than some sex). So I've long claimed that I would never be able to diet. Now, though, I realize that's not entirely true. I could never limit the type of food I'm allowed to eat. I can, however, pay attention to how much I'm eating and what kinds of food I'm eating, and it turns out it's actually kind of...fun.
Since I'm not on a mission to lose any weight, I'm not super strict with myself. Some days I know I'm going to go over my recommended calorie limit and I just acknowledge that from the start so I don't feel disappointed about it. Usually, these are days when I know I'm going to be drinking. Nothing like thinking about all the empty calories in alcohol to make you think twice about having another beer! There was a day a couple of weeks ago where I had to acknowledge to myself as I entered my food totals for the night before that I'd had three beers and five vodka tonics. Uh, not exactly "everything in moderation." So, hey, added bonus: since I started tracking I've been drinking less when I go out. Anyway, I went way over on the day of the Super Bowl party and the night we went drinking in City A and when I went out for dinner for Mardi Gras (where the point was to be gluttonous) but other than that I've done really well.
The trick, I've discovered, is to put all the things I know I'm really going to want to eat that day onto the list early. Right now, for instance, I have Valentine's Day cookies that I absolutely love. My mom made some and sent them to me, and I also made a batch to take to my class on Tuesday night. They're pretty much nothing but butter and sugar and bleached flour. Am I going to eat them? Hell yeah I am! But if I know I'm going to eat two of them every day (and I am) then I put them on my food list at breakfast and then I know how many calories I have available for my actual meals that day. And it just helps me make better choices. If I know I'm gonna eat two cookies later, maybe I eat a Lean Cuisine for lunch instead of mac and cheese. Or I walk an extra mile to burn off the calories in one of those cookies. No biggie. It really is great. I guess I'm making a few sacrifices, but it doesn't feel like it at all.
One of the biggest things I've noticed is how much less soda I'm drinking. I used to drink at least two 12 oz. sodas a day. Then last year I cut myself back to just the 100 calorie cans and only allowed myself to have one a day. The only time I drank more than that was at restaurants, where I still tried to limit myself to just one (sometimes I was successful with that, sometimes I wasn't). Now with this new program, I'm making myself drink my full water bottle each day (32 oz.) and I realized today that I'm no longer feeling the need to drink a soda every day anymore. Part of it is the whole choice-making thing, because a lot of times I'd rather spend 100 calories on actual food than on soda, and part of it is just that I'm not craving it as much anymore.
Anyway, just thought I'd let you know how it's working out for me. I'm going to try to really stick to it for another few months, just until my body really knows what it needs and portioning becomes innate and not something I have to think about. If you're wanting to lose some weight, or if you're like me and you just think nutrition and fitness is interesting, you should try it out for a while. After all, it's free! I realize having to be organized enough to track your food doesn't appeal to everyone, but it's infinitely easier than trying to stick to some stupid diet plan, and you can be very flexible with it. Oh, and I don't use any of the message boards or motivational portions of the site, but I know some people really need the emotional motivation to get healthy, and the site seems to have plenty of that, too.
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